I grow so weary, someway, of all things
That love and loving have vouchsafed to me,
Since now all dreamed-of sweets of ecstasy
Am I possessed of: The caress that clings—
The lips that mix with mine with murmurings
No language may interpret, and the free,
Unfettered...

When she comes home again! A thousand ways
I fashion, to myself, the tenderness
Of my glad welcome: I shall tremble—yes;
And touch her, as when first in the old days
I touched her girlish hand, nor dared upraise
Mine eyes, such was my faint heart’s sweet...

Old man never had much to say—
  ’Ceptin’ to Jim,—
And Jim was the wildest boy he had,
  And the old man jes’ wrapped up in him!
Never heerd him speak but once
Er twice in my life,—and first time was
When the army broke out, and Jim he went,...

There! little girl, don’t cry!
    They have broken your doll, I know;
      And your tea-set blue,
      And your play-house, too,
    Are things of the long ago;
      But childish troubles will soon pass by.—
          There! little girl, don’t...

And this is the way the baby woke:
  As when in deepest drops of dew
The shine and shadows sink and soak,
  The sweet eyes glimmered through and through;
And eddyings and dimples broke
  About the lips, and no one knew
Or could divine the words...

This is the way the baby slept:
  A mist of tresses backward thrown
By quavering sighs where kisses crept
  With yearnings she had never known:
The little hands were closely kept
  About a lily newly blown—
And God was with her. And we wept.—...

Let me come in where you sit weeping,—ay,
Let me, who have not any child to die,
Weep with you for the little one whose love
        I have known nothing of.

The little arms that slowly, slowly loosed
Their pressure round your neck; the hands you used...

I crave, dear Lord,
No boundless hoard
  Of gold and gear,
    Nor jewels fine,
    Nor lands, nor kine,
Nor treasure-heaps of anything.—
    Let but a little hut be mine
Where at the hearthstone I may hear
    The cricket sing,...

“little haly! Little Haly!” cheeps the robin in the tree;
“Little Haly!” sighs the clover, “Little Haly!” moans the bee;
“Little Haly! Little Haly!” calls the kill-deer at twilight;
And the katydids and crickets hollers “Haly!” all the night.

The sunflowers and...

Little orphant Annie ’s come to our house to stay,
An’ wash the cups and saucers up, an’ brush the crumbs away,
An’ shoo the chickens off the porch, an’ dust the hearth, an’ sweep,
An’ make the fire, an’ bake the bread, an’ earn her board-an’-keep;
An’ all us...